Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant • Hacker News Board

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#171

Post by jerf » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 1:57 PM UTC

tobbyb wrote: post #64

I think the tech crowd is in denial about their role in surveillance. We expect professionals to behave ethically. Doctors and companies working on genetics and cloning for instance are expected to behave ethically and have constraints placed on their work. And with consequences for those behaving unethically. Yet we have millions of software engineers working on building a surveillance society with no sense of ethic…

"Yet we have millions of software engineers working on building a surveillance society with no sense of ethics, constraints or consequences."

No, we don't.

We have probably a few hundred doing hard-core surveillance. We have another few thousand functioning as enablers by making social media and ad networks really attractive. We have a whole lot of non-engineers insisting on placing ads and tracking on their websites.

And then there's the mass bulk of software engineers that have nothing to do with it, and nothing they do will stop it.

50% of doctors decide to stop doing something, and it gets noticed. 99% of software engineers decide to take enormously strong stands against surveillance even at great personnel cost, and surveillance continues on as if nothing happened, except maybe those who work on it get paid a bit more to make up for decreased supply.

It may, in that weird 20th/21st century fashionable-self-loathing way, feel really good to blame the group you're a part of, but basically what you're proposing won't do anything at all. You're imputing to "software engineers" in general abilities they don't collectively have. You've got to attack it at the demand level, you will never be able to control the supply. This also matters because if you waste your energy with that approach, you might decide you've done something about the problem and stop trying when in fact you've done nothing.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#172

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 2:03 PM UTC

tobbyb wrote: post #64

I think the tech crowd is in denial about their role in surveillance. We expect professionals to behave ethically. Doctors and companies working on genetics and cloning for instance are expected to behave ethically and have constraints placed on their work. And with consequences for those behaving unethically. Yet we have millions of software engineers working on building a surveillance society with no sense of ethic…

> What we have instead are anachronistic discussions on things like privacy that seem oddly disconnected from 300 years of accumulated wisdom on surveillance, privacy, free speech and liberty to pretend the obvious is not obvious, and delay the need for ethical behavior and introspection.

You know, this is not coming from software developers. There's a group of people out there whose living is made by manipulating the public perception and speech. This group is not the software developers.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#173

Post by dkersten » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 2:03 PM UTC

snydly wrote: post #149

jacquesm wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would be unhappy if people said "I think that karmacondon has made mistakes in the past, so he shouldn't be trusted to do his job ever again." It's not about mistakes. Mistakes are - usually - a sign that someone needed to learn. They do not as a rule include wanton intent. And if a person were to make too many mistakes then they probably should not be trusted. > I understand what you're saying, and I think I get…

> Potentially criminal groupls: everybody. While this may be true, certain crimes are seen as worse than others. And, as un-PC as it may sound, certain demographics are many times more likely to commit certain crimes. Homicide: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6227a1.htm Also, some government monitoring can be "for your own good": Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss…

Government monitoring "for your own good" is pretty scary. We already have situations where people are attacked by the government or its agents because they did something that only harms themselves. For example [1]. Mass surveillance, if left unchecked, will eventually expand for whatever purposes the government wishes. Power is easy to incrementally grow (or in the case of the NSA, they simply ignore the laws) and very difficult to shrink again. We shouldn't think that this wouldn't be used against us sometime in the future and who can truly say that they never did anything harmless-but-illegal (take drugs? gambling? copyright infringement?) and as [1] shows, people have died for these "crimes".

[1] https://www.google.ie/search?q=sal+colusi&oq=sal+colusi&aqs=...

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#174

Post by m1sta_ » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 2:05 PM UTC

karmacondon wrote: post #103

tobbyb wrote: post #64

I think the tech crowd is in denial about their role in surveillance. We expect professionals to behave ethically. Doctors and companies working on genetics and cloning for instance are expected to behave ethically and have constraints placed on their work. And with consequences for those behaving unethically. Yet we have millions of software engineers working on building a surveillance society with no sense of ethic…

Not everyone agrees with you that the tech sector is contributing to the building of a surveillance society or police state. There are a lot of people who have carefully considered the issue and come to the conclusion that facebook knowing what posts you liked or ad networks knowing which pages your IP address has visited is not a Bad Thing. It's clear that you don't agree and all debate is welcome, but I caution you…

I'm more worried about a lack of government transparency than I am about personal privacy.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#175

Post by rrggrr » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 2:07 PM UTC

blitzprog wrote: post #11

"This affects all of us. We must care." is not an effective way of convincing someone. I personally do not care about privacy. I see no reason why I should. It's just my opinion. I know other people do but please don't generalize.

Civic responsibility. You choose to be part of this society and you owe it a debt for the stability and opportunity it provides you. Its not an entitlement and your egocentric attitude toward privacy places you, and society, at risk. There must be boundaries set for government or it will expand power unchecked. History demonstrates this time and again.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#176

Post by m1sta_ » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 2:10 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #122

golergka wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which sector is building startup after startup for data mining, tracking, building profiles? You talk about it like it's necessarily a bad thing, by default, for everyone. Why?

Because information is power and power tends to be abused over the longer term, all fig-leaves about 'improving the world' to the contrary.

The right to bear arms is partly about the people having the same powers or greater, collectively, than the government.

In the modern era it is information asymmetry that we should worry about. How to prevent such a thing pragmatically is tricky.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#177

Post by m1sta_ » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 2:13 PM UTC

Casseres wrote: post #162

_euvw wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My respons to the 'nothing to hide' argument is: "Why are you so scared of things that are hidden?" That puts them on the defensive. Since now they have to justify their fear for the unknown. And then we're onto the real topic: fear.

Someone who pushes the "nothing to hide" argument probably wouldn't understand the implication of your response. I suggest a different approach: say "Okay, in that case what prescriptions are you taking, how much money do you have in your bank account, and how often do you have sex? After all, you have nothing to hide right?" That also puts them on the defensive side of the argument.

Are those really sensitive questions for most people?

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#178

Post by m1sta_ » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 2:17 PM UTC

rrggrr wrote: post #175

blitzprog wrote: post #11

"This affects all of us. We must care." is not an effective way of convincing someone. I personally do not care about privacy. I see no reason why I should. It's just my opinion. I know other people do but please don't generalize.

Civic responsibility. You choose to be part of this society and you owe it a debt for the stability and opportunity it provides you. Its not an entitlement and your egocentric attitude toward privacy places you, and society, at risk. There must be boundaries set for government or it will expand power unchecked. History demonstrates this time and again.

Constrain government power by shining light on it.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#179

Post by m1sta_ » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 2:19 PM UTC

miguelrochefort wrote: post #145

Why don't privacy proponents don't go all in and just ask to get rid of the Internet? Surely, privacy is easier to maintain when communication is inefficient. Perhaps that's because privacy is actually an archaic and backward idea that maintains all of our problems alive. I can't think of a less progressive (more conservative) idea than privacy. The next most important revolution in human history will be our transiti…

How do we get to a completely transparent society without massive collateral damage? I understand the rationale for the goal but the transition is so very difficult. I wish more thought was being put into it.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#180

Post by m1sta_ » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 2:19 PM UTC

miguelrochefort wrote: post #145

Why don't privacy proponents don't go all in and just ask to get rid of the Internet? Surely, privacy is easier to maintain when communication is inefficient. Perhaps that's because privacy is actually an archaic and backward idea that maintains all of our problems alive. I can't think of a less progressive (more conservative) idea than privacy. The next most important revolution in human history will be our transiti…

How do we get to a completely transparent society without massive collateral damage? I understand the rationale for the goal but the transition is so very difficult. I wish more thought was being put into it.